Vista Germantown notches record sales price

Vista Germantown, shown under construction just north of downtown Nashville, is one of several new entrants in Nashville’s red-hot rental market.
(Photo:
Samuel M. Simpkins / File / The Tennessean
)Buy Photo

Vista Germantown has been sold for $53.25 million to an affiliate of a Canadian commercial real estate company.

On a per-unit basis, the affiliate of Toronto-based Avison Young paid $220,000 each for the 242 apartment units. That’s slightly more than the $210,000 per unit that LaSalle Investment Management Inc. paid in January for West End Village, the current record price per-square-foot paid for an apartment unit in the Nashville area.

“It was a very high-quality asset in a fast-growing location,” Steve Massey, a multifamily broker with commercial real estate firm CBRE in Nashville, said about one reason Vista Germantown attracted a record price per unit. “It speaks to the demand investors have to acquire assets in the Nashville market.”

The acquisition is the first in Nashville for Avison Young, which in just under two years has bought four apartment communities in the Southeast with a fifth under contract. Other acquisitions have included Fielder Square in Memphis, which is near that city’s baseball stadium. In Nashville, Vista Germantown is next to the planned Sulphur Dell ballpark.

“We feel that these high-end residential communities make attractive investments and our strategy is to invest in upgrades to keep these properties at the top of their respective markets,” said Amy Erixon, a principal of Avison Young in Toronto.

Last fall, Cleveland-based Associated Estates Realty Corp. confirmed plans to sell Vista Germantown and six other non-core communities in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Florida in a year. Proceeds were to help pay for Associated’s pending acquisition of another portfolio of apartments for $324 million.

In addition to the 242 apartment units, Vista Germantown is home to Silo restaurant. Avison Young bought the apartment community through Vista Germantown Apartments LP.

The sale of Elliston 23 this year is expected to set a new record per square foot price for an individual apartment community in Nashville. When owner Southern Land Co. put that mid-rise building with 331 apartment units and 5,000 square feet of fully leased retail space on the market in January, analysts said it could fetch a price north of $275,000 a unit, or more than $90 million.